


"u good?" "no"

by eliminatetheswearing



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Ben Solo - Freeform, Everyone's Depressed, F/M, Idiots in Love, Kylo Ren - Freeform, M&M's, Modern AU, Movie: Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Movie: Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Mutual Pining, POV Ben Solo, POV Kylo Ren, POV Rey (Star Wars), Rey - Freeform, Reylo - Freeform, Star Wars - Freeform, Star Wars References, anti-capitalism at its finest, because i'm tired of billionaire playboy ben solo, ben and rey work minimum wage jobs together, but there's a sweet rom com undertone, everyone is also horny, i have no idea if this will work, lots of group chatting that will manifest into irl stuff dw, m&m's world, rom com, text fic
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 07:22:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19436650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eliminatetheswearing/pseuds/eliminatetheswearing
Summary: Rey Jakku's up for a job at M&M's World, and her future coworker, Ben, is strangely entranced by her.ORA modern AU rom-com based on Reylo Twitter's meme du jour.Many thanks toJasonfor providing the cursed art that inspired this literary masterpiece.Follow me onTwitterfor more Reylo shitposting taken too far.





	"u good?" "no"

**Author's Note:**

> YouTube embeds and message screenshots are used throughout this fic. 
> 
> If you require textual versions of these conversations, please don't hesitate to get in touch. I'm unsure as to how to make this style of storytelling more accessible, so any guidance would be appreciated.

[@hereforbensolo](https://twitter.com/hereforbensolo/status/1129041955571339265)

Rey Jakku couldn’t stop snickering to herself—she had somehow ended up in Hell, or close enough to it. And she needed to convince the higher ups of Hell to let her hawk its smorgasbord of fine wares and other categories of tat for minimum wage and no paid time off. Hooray! _It’s just temporary_ , Rey assured herself. _Once you have that Össur bionics internship, you’ll never have to work a dead end job again and you’ll spend the rest of your life helping people_ … _provided the internship isn’t offered to some spoilt brat whose daddy is on the board of directors._ She sighed.

Rey didn’t want to be here, and she didn’t know long she was going to be here for. What if she aced the interview? Though, she was oddly comforted by the general sense that no one else wanted to be here either. Perhaps through their mutual disdain for grotesque displays of unapologetic corporatism, Rey could find a semblance of camaraderie with her potential coworkers. Unfortunately for the time being, she had to intimately familiarise herself with her surroundings in preparation for her interview.

Whilst perusing the store, one display in M&M's World caught Rey’s eye, more than any plushie or promise of a rare and exotic grey M&M: a leather jacket. But this wasn’t any old jacket. Heaven forbid you spend your hard-earned cash on something that looks good! Anthropomorphised chocolates of varying colours incongruously adorned and popped against the lambskin’s fine grain. The blue M&M, whose shape resembled an egg, desperately clung onto its masculinity by sporting a pair of sunglasses. Rey imagined it was to reify to passersby that this garish £3000 jacket, embedded with more Swarovski crystals than a drag queen’s pageant gown that actually _deserved_ these crystals, was in fact real and très chic.

She pulled out her phone to take a photo—the guys would love this.

* * *

_PING! PING! PING!_

Ben Solo, suffocating in the confines of a musty neoprene suit, could barely hear or see shit, but those piercing pings were particularly grating today of all days. He sighed.

He couldn’t believe he agreed to take this shitty job. He wanted to prove to his Uncle Luke that he was not only invested in his family’s business (he wasn’t), but that he was willing to study the myriad components that constitute the M&M's corporation’s framework (he wasn’t) in order to take over one day (ha!). Ben wasn’t sure what he wanted to with his life, but he was certain his destiny was not tied to M&M's World in any shape or form. The problem was he hadn't figured out an alternate path to deviate from the family business with. He'd spent his university years in a depressed haze funded by his parents. Could he decide on a course? Hell no, so he picked whatever degree he had high enough grades for and swallowed his pride. Anything it took to get away from home.

If International Relations student Ben Solo wasn’t listening to Count Basie, Chic Chocolate, The Mills Brothers and Dean Martin, he was inhaling a million ounces of indica a day. He hardly paid attention in lectures and seminars, recording them, paying some poor sod to transcribe them and haphazardly scribbling down what he perceived to be the most important pieces of information that he could memorise and regurgitate when required, but even that got too hard. The heyday of Ben’s time spent in education was over after receiving a letter that awarded him zero out of zero marks in all exams and essays. "Zero out of zero ain't too shabby, considering I didn’t even show up!" he would joke, but that joke never managed to erase the singe of humiliation he felt whenever someone brought up university.

His parents, desperately concerned for their son, wanted to coax some independence out of him in the hopes that he’d find his calling, so they cut him off. And Ben was 98 percent sure he’d never find his calling, but he needed money… any money. After pleading with Luke, promising that yes, this is exactly what he wants to do with his life (it wasn’t), his uncle decided Ben’s broad and intimidating frame made him suited to portray the yellow peanut M&M, which involved staying eerily silent and taking pictures with tourists who wanted to boast about their meeting a sentient piece of chocolate.

_PING! PING! PING! PING!_

_Good grief, who keeps their phone off silent these days?_ Even with the _A Swingin’ Affair!_ version of Frank Sinatra’s “If I Had You” flowing out of an AirPod in one of Ben's ears, the noise was too much to handle. He jostled with his suit, attempting to align his eyes with the microscopic pin pricks the tailor claimed were holes. Between the fuzz obscuring his view, he saw her. This impossibly bright ray of light tugging at Ben’s vision, pulling it away from swarms of tourists clambering over each other in a desperate bid to grab a £20 keyring featuring the horny green M&M. _Note to self: Give the horny green M &M a name._

This girl, whose radiant skin glowed with the illumination and serenity of a thousand stars millions of lightyears away, whose dimple carved a hammock in her impeccably smooth visage where he wanted to lay forever, whose smile was so wide, it could split her face in half… not that he wanted her to split her face in half. _For fuck’s sake, Ben. How are you so inept that you can’t even admire someone’s beauty without making it weird?_

She was giggling at the sight of M&M's World’s pièce de résistance—that bloody jacket. Ben didn’t blame her, he had explained countless times to his parents and Luke that it was too much, even for an operation as explicitly greedy as theirs, but they wouldn’t listen. Uncle Luke, whom Ben is 78 percent convinced wants him dead, pushed extra hard for this jacket, citing its exclusivity and opportunities for customisation as key selling points. Mum and dad never relented in emphasising that Luke knows best since he spent his thirties travelling the world to cultivate startups in the Global South. “A truly altruistic venture, you should be proud of spreading capitalism’s message whilst standing next to so many people of colour with your thumbs up.” Ben had smugly commented on Luke’s status update celebrating the twentieth anniversary of his endeavour. He had never trusted Luke’s judgement despite everyone’s insistence to the contrary, and so far he’d been proven right. Not a single jacket had sold.

Ben couldn’t blame this girl (whom he should really stop referring to as a girl) for entertaining herself and presumably her friends with this conspicuousness, and he’s sure the giant yellow blob he’s sporting made for quite the complementary backdrop.

* * *

Rey knew how ridiculous those words sounded before she even began to type them out, but something in her gut told her it was true. This M&M really was checking her out. It was kind of endearing, the way this stylised chocolate mascot froze, like spacetime ceased to operate around them. On the outside, they were forced to be this faceless, voiceless brand representative—languid yet zippy, silent yet loquacious, camouflaged yet detectable. There was someone underneath this ghastly, cartoonish costume—someone with a life, a heart, a soul.

Rey was surprised to find herself mystified by this relatively obvious revelation, and it made her smile and tilt her head slightly to the right. What she _didn’t_ realise was that she was mimicking the peanut’s tilt to their left.

_Shit._

Rey snapped out of her daze and hurriedly checked the time. Phew, she had ten minutes until her interview, so she set off to find this Phasma person.

* * *

She’s _beautiful_. Ben was awestruck by this girl, but it was different from anything he’d experienced before. He felt a lasso roped around his body; if he were to truly let go of everything, he would just drift over towards her, and together they would drift off into the sunset. His head slowly tilted to the left. And whilst he’s normally cognisant of this costume’s creepy factor, it didn’t bother him this time, even with his head angled like he’s the main villain in a slasher film.

She was laughing under her breath, causing her to snort a little, and even though he had no idea what those messages she was reading and sending said, he loved that. Now she was trying to take a selfie, but he wasn’t sure what face she was pulling. Creeped out? Confused? He studied her intensely, gazing up and down, still unsure of what it is about her, some random girl, that was so magnetic. Was anyone else looking at her this way?

Before Ben could check, something terrible had happened: she noticed him. Panic crept over him, grasping at his gut, dropping an anvil on his chest. Then he noticed something… a smirk embellished with confusion and delight, a tilt of her head to mirror his. Was she equally entranced by him? _No, that’s absurd._ Ben thought. She doesn’t even know what he looks like. For all she knows, he could be some hideous creature stuck in a humiliating costume. That’s what he believed about himself anyway. Wait, she wasn't taking a selfie, she took a photo of him. _Fuck_. 

She seemed panicked now; rushed. She dashed over to the checkout and asked for… Phasma? Oh no, she was applying to be a mascot too. He wanted to tell her to run, to go get a job somewhere else—anywhere else. Degrading minimum wage work could be found at any number of greedy businesses, not just this one.

Ben wasn’t sure what frightened him more: the prospect of another person being made to dress up as a fucking M&M or that if she was successful, they would be working together everyday. He wouldn’t even be able to talk to her, not that he was much of a talker anyway, but still! On the other hand, having someone keep him company would make the days a little less boring, and she seemed fun with the added bonus of sharing his hatred for gratuitous branding (and branding full stop).

He excused himself from freaking customers out to take a toilet break. He forgot he had his suit on and found himself lodged in the cubicle's entrance. Tilting his hips and smacking the sides of the branded eggshell imprisoning him, Ben just about managed to squeeze himself inside. Slamming the door behind him (he wasn't bothered if Luke thought he was taking a shit on company time), Ben pulled his four-fingered gloves off, wiped the sweat between his fingers onto some toilet paper, and texted Phasma with a sense of urgency that was definitely unwarranted.

Waiting was torture, but it might be worth it… or a total disaster that could ruin his standing with his family even more. Regardless of the outcome, Ben would just have to wave to and pose for photos with the brainwashed masses in total solitude.

* * *

An inconceivably tall woman glided out of a door marked “Private” towards Rey. Her icy blue eyes could have sliced your soul into subatomic particles, and her platinum blonde hair probably carried the fire of a thousand suns. Rey was intimidated and kinda turned on. _I’d let her slap me._

“You must be…” the woman paused to read her clipboard, as if Rey’s name was difficult to remember, “…Rey.”

“That’s me!” Rey extended her arms outwards in a shrug-like motion, angling her vocal intonation upwards like an early 00s sitcom promo.

“Hi Phasma!” Rey reached for a handshake, but Phasma simply raised her left eyebrow in judgement.

“Follow me.” ordered the pasty Amazonian, and they proceeded to a meeting room.

_Either I’m filming a porno I didn’t knowingly consent to, or I’m in a porno… Or she just fucking hates me for no reason whatsoever._

Rey sat down and shuffled her chair around, grimacing at the sound of it screeching against the linoleum floor. She turned around to see Phasma in the doorway with her back facing towards Rey, harsh and cool light from her mobile washing over her face. Rey swiftly rotated back towards Phasma’s desk, hoping she didn’t catch on to Rey’s nosiness.

Phasma sat down in her chair, crossing her right leg over her left, clicking an ardently chewed M&M World pen.

“So, Rachel—”

“Rey.” Rey interrupted.

“Rey.” Phasma gave her the fakest smile she’d ever seen. “Do you have any experience?”

“I’ve worked in retail since I was 16. Stockroom, checkout, perfume girl—”

“Why would I need to know about your retail experience?” Phasma was genuinely perplexed. Rey gulped. What had she applied for?

“Uh… My apologies, Phasma. I thought it was pertinent to the position.”

“All you’re required to do is stand in and outside of our store, take photos with our customers, and hug their rabid offspring. So, do you have any experience as a mascot?” Phasma was gunning for Rey to slip up, she could feel it.

“A mascot?!” Rey was so incredulous, her eyes almost popped out of their sockets. Sweat started to form at her hairline. “Heh, well I can stand on my feet for a long time.” she added before Phasma could interject with a snide comment. “I’m strong.”

“Congratulations on being able to bench 15 kilograms.” Phasma smirked and pretended to flick through some papers.

 _Damn it!_ Rey couldn’t win. She just stared at the ground.

Phasma leaned forward with her hands on the table, a glint of perniciousness in her eyes that Rey felt rumble through her veins. Rey rose her head and eyes with a snap, alerting herself to Phasma’s every movement.

“Congratulations. You’ve got the job.” Phasma spoke with such a stolid impassiveness, Rey thought she was being sarcastic, rolled her eyes, and started to get up from her chair. Phasma, returning to those prop papers, informed Rey that she started on Monday, provided her background check didn't raise any red flags. Rey was frozen solid.

“You may leave.” Phasma gestured in the direction of her office door and grabbed her phone from her handbag. Eyebrows furrowed, Rey slowly made her way back to the shop floor, unsure of what the fuck just happened. She reached for her mobile to leave the group chat a voice note; she wanted them to **hear** her indefinable emotion(s plural?!).

* * *

Ben saw the girl emerge from the back of the store, but she wasn’t glowing as she had been mere minutes prior. _Fucking Phasma_. Before he could storm to her office and give her a talking to, not that he yielded that much power, the girl started to speak, albeit into her phone.

“Guys… I- I got the job, and I start on Monday, but uh… yeah. That was the weirdest experience of my life. I’ll tell you about it when I get home.”

Relief drained any tension clutching at Ben’s chest. _Guess I’ll see her on Monday_.


End file.
